The Army We Fight
by la chiede il tuo cor
Summary: The barricade from the contrasting viewpoints of various National Guardsmen.


AN: Seeking Utopia is on hiatus until I talk with a child psychiatrist. This, on the other hand, is likely to be uploaded again and again… It started out as one of those "five minutes for each POV" things, but I've decided to expand on it. Many thanks to AmZ for pointing out that revolvers weren't in existence in 1832. Regardless. I'm not really satisfied with this, to be quite honest, but I really am hesitant to keep changing it, because, you know, that's cheating. But, as time goes on, what perfectionism I have overrides my integrity.

Chapter One: The First Attack

FOR

My name is Bertin Denis, and on June fifth, 1832, I was thirty-one years old.

We came swiftly over the top of the barricade. I could feel my limbs trembling, but my duty was to serve my country. I had to do this. Not that I wanted to... It would be far more accurate to say; "I had to do this. Or else."

Audric and I were glad that we were both here with Conrad. We, of course, did not trust him on his own. No; it's not so much that we didn't trust him… We simply feared for his safety, as older brothers are to do. I pitied Audric; he was the eldest of the three of us, and that made both Conrad and me his responsibility, though indirectly.

Maman was bitter; I knew this. The three of us had left our family home together, and looking back at the expression on her face was more than I could bear. Audric promised her that he would see us all safely back home, but I knew that promise to be little more than a dream. It didn't matter. I promised, too. But it didn't seem to make any difference to her.

Now, upon reaching the other side of the barricade, I was more frightened than I had ever been. They had trained us to shoot, and how to aim properly, yet no one had ever warned any of us how badly our aim would be affected in the heat of the moment, when your arms and hands go slack and numb, but somehow jump of their own accord. I could feel my cheeks tingling, and the hairs on the back of my neck rising.

But then, I felt Audric on my left side, and Conrad on my right. Somehow, in the split second that I realized that my brothers were with me, I felt safe.

Until I heard the bullet take its victim.

Conrad.

I was splattered in my younger brother's blood. Gray matter was plastered on my shoulder, soaking through the material of my clothing. It smelled horrible. I felt sick, and not only because of the stench.

He had been shot point-blank by an insurgent. This insurgent- impossibly- seemed _happy_ with himself. He seemed far too pleased for the heat of battle, and I felt an immense rage, reminding me unpleasantly of boiling water. Maman made tea for Conrad with boiling water. I raised my musket and shot it into the insurgent's head, and felt a perverse satisfaction as he fell, but felt no guilt in that single moment.

But then I glanced up, bewildered. My brother was dead, and I'd just killed a man.

I'd broken my promise to my mother, and I'd killed a man. All within twenty seconds.

I felt a panic wash over me, and suddenly, life became a dream. The insurgent that I saw raising a torch over a barrel of gunpowder was surreal; the cries of men falling around me lulled me; and not even Audric, grasping my shoulder and pulling me back over the barricade, could bring me to my senses.

At least Audric was able to keep half of his promise.

THE

My name is Paul Vaux, and today, June fifth, 1832, I am thirty years old

The bastards have torn up the street and built themselves a little barricade. Well, why not? All the more fun for me. I've fought in '30 and in '22. I've survived both, and even enjoyed them. Come hell on high water, that barricade will fall.

Please. Really. What good will it do, sending a senile old man up to the top of the barricade with a flag? Do you think we care if you have a little piece of cloth flying high, pretty, and proud? Oh- I know! This is your way of stopping the old and senile from defecating on you. I've got it, now! I must admit that seeing him up there, yelling like a maniac, was quite amusing. Send more, please. It will benefit both of our sides.

Hmph. And now, you sit there and make a speech! That must be the leader- from the sound of that speech, he's got as much sense as the paving stones I'm standing on… Oh, wait. That's right. I'm not standing on a paving stone. All of those are stacked up in front of me.

Well, might as well start climbing; can't wait all day…

Oh, they'd thought themselves clever, putting a glass door in their barricade. Know what, fellas? We can step around glass, because in this light, it reflects everything- clear as day.

Well. We _would_ have all stepped around it, but we all knew that Nason was a moron. Step right into it, won't you? Dolt of a soldier. See if _I_ help you up. You've always been a bastard, anyways.

Right. So, you know, I'm standing here, shooting at everybody in sight, hoping to God I'm not shooting my own men- you know, typical stuff- when I see this little man, an effeminate little thing dressed in what looks like my granny's nightgown. And he's _right in front of me! _Well! What else was I supposed to do but grab him by the ear and march him right back over the barricade? No, it had nothing to do with that crazy boy with a death wish coupled with a keg of explosives. Are you calling me a coward?

Hmm. It seems that poor granny's about to be executed. That explains why he's yelling at the top of his lungs. Really, that boy has a pair of lungs like bellows…

He was louder than the guns that shot him.

ARMY

My name is Richard Meyet, and on June fifth, 1832, I was twenty-two years old.

In my twenty-two years, I had never seen such carnage. Upon first beholding the barricade in the insufficient light of the evening sky, I became aware that I was unlikely to live through the horrors to come… But that is inconsequential. I had been gifted with life, and I knew that I would not live forever. Death is, perhaps, the only constant- and therefore, the only comfort- we, as a race, will ever know.

No; it was not death that I feared upon my arrival at the barricade. I did move and act in fear, however. Fear for what?

I had always wanted to die in peace. If death is as sleeping without dreams, then death will be good. If death brings forth the gates of Heaven, then death will be glorious. But how can a violent death lead to an afterlife of peace- of reward? If you enter sleep in a state of terror or anxiety, your sleep will be plagued with nightmares and fitful turning. I did not want my death to be the same.

I never wanted to take another man's life, yet it was my duty to fight. The battle was well under way when I finally gathered my resolve to raise my musket to an insurgent to shoot…

Yet, as I did, I beheld a hand coming from nowhere- a hand from the dark- to cover the muzzle of my musket. What will of God was this? Was it fate, then, for this young terrorist to survive?

I knelt, despite the melee about me to discover the source of this mysterious intervention. It did not take me long.

A small form lay prone at my feet, unmoving; yet I could tell it to be alive. It looked to be a small boy. I could see the black hole that my bullet had made in his hand.

Yet something was wrong. This figure was clearly wounded to the point of fatality. I scanned the boy's figure… And… There. My bullet had gone in the youth's hand, but exited through his back.

"Marius…" The boy whispered the name once and fell silent, his breathing ragged. He was dying.

I had taken the life of a child.

There are a few things in life that no explanation or necessity can justify.

I reached into my belt and retrieved my pistol. I placed the muzzle to my temple, and pulled the trigger.


End file.
